and now i thought i would show u all the steps to hand quilting it.
This is my favorite thing to do, settle down at the frame and quilt.

Here are the things i will use, Stencils, marking took, (i use a Fons@Porter mechanical Pencil. It comes with dark and white lead. ) 1/4 in marking tape, Needle puller, needles, and thinble(notice mine is old and used ). and, a small pair of scissors

Also, i will be using white, all cotton quilting thread. I like to thread several needles at a time, and then settle down to sew

The area we will be working in is 15 in, by 3 in.. I want to quilt around it on the inside 1/4 in, so i tape it off with my tape

so i enter needle,about 1/2 in into quilt top, and into batting, but not going through the backing. then u pull it on through, giving it a slight tug, and secure the knot in the batting

this is known as, popping the knot :)

so now we will start quilting. I like to place 4 or 5 stitches on my needle at once

then u pull the needle and thread through. The goal is to get your stitches, and the space inbetween them, the same size. Do not worry about how small they r at first, size will come in time

once u have quilted all the way around the block, remove tape, and see your work. :)

and now we r ready to fill in the middle. This is the stencil i have chosen. You will see that i have centered it in the area. Once i am sure it is centered, I then use my tape to keep it in place

and then we mark it. I used the white lead, on the dark blue

And then u just settle down, quilt, and see the results of your time :):)

Ninnie, it is so lovely to see a post from you. I am glad you are now progressing on this lovely quilt, since we followed you cutting and stitching the top together. I look forward to following your progress.

Thank you Ninny so much for your tute. Hand quilting is something I hope to do in the future and it is so nice to see pictures of how it is done. I'm going to look at your other posts as well and then I'll print all of them so I'll have a 'story of hand quilting' in my notebook. Thank you again.

Thank you for the post. I really enjoyed it. I hand pieced and handquilted my first quilt almost 40 years ago and am now just getting back to quilting again. That 1/4' tape looks like a fantastic help...I recall making VERY light marks with a number 2 pencil for mine - will definately try to locate some of that tape. I have purchased some stencils and am eager to try them.